“O!” cried Miss Halifax. “If it was, as I suppose, a wicked fraud, that was only the beginning of his villainy. Mr Globestein--who is, it seems, unmarried--after asking the poor thing a few penetrating questions, suggested that she should become governess-companion to his motherless children. She consented, of course, happy beyond measure over her good fortune, and removed her small belongings to his private house. There were no children there; and she was put off from day to day with plausible accounts of their present absence and soon return. The rest I may hurry over. Once secured in his home, this man persuaded her to take occasionally a hand at cards with himself and some of his friends. She lost, of course; he advanced her money; at length things reached the point at which he had been aiming, and he had her completely in his power. It was ruin for her either way; he threatened--” Gilead put up a gentle hand. “Spare yourself the pain. She was good, she was desperate--I understand--and as a final resource she decided to implore the help of strangers through the public press. The barrenness of the result, the inhuman silence, drove her in the end to her last chance of escape through self-destruction. I hold the child a heroine. Great God, the stony indifference of the world to her appeal!--no wonder it killed her heart. This man is a particular scoundrel. He shall bleed, Miss Halifax, he shall bleed, I promise you.” She did not know, actually, if he implied a moral or a physical blood-letting, and she did not care. He was to her like a God whose decrees were never to be questioned. If he had killed, and said “This is just,” she would have believed him. She rose, as he did, and looked at him with her bosom heaving; and, without another word spoken by either, he left her. A few minutes later he telephoned from his private office for his art adviser to come and see him at once. “Dexter,” he said, when that gentleman was closeted with him, “what is the market value of a statuette by Pigalle?” “Marble, Mr Balm?” “Yes.” “If indisputable, and his best work, anything from one to two thousand guineas and upwards. An example, not so long ago, fetched three thousand guineas at public auction.” “Globestein has lately secured one for ten pounds. I want you to bear that in mind.” “I will not forget it, Mr Balm. It is quite likely. The man is a clever rogue.” “Very well. Now come with me to his place.”